Fake injuries, flops more common in men's soccer game

Soccer's actors outnumber actressesBrazilian's dive notwithstanding, men more likely to fake an injury

JERE LONGMAN, NEW YORK TIMES

Published 5:30 am, Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Photo: JOHANNES EISELE, Getty

Image 1of/1

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 1

Brazil's Erika is carried from the pitch as teammates Andreia (1) and Daiane (3) look on during the quarterfinal match Sunday. Moments later, Erika ran back onto the field and was given a yellow card for stalling. less

Brazil's Erika is carried from the pitch as teammates Andreia (1) and Daiane (3) look on during the quarterfinal match Sunday. Moments later, Erika ran back onto the field and was given a yellow card for ... more

Photo: JOHANNES EISELE, Getty

Fake injuries, flops more common in men's soccer game

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

COLOGNE, Germany — There often seems to be more diving in soccer than in the Summer Olympics.

Phantom contact, or the slightest collision, can lead to theatrical belly flops and exaggerated somersaults by players deceptively trying to draw fouls on their opponents, kill time or catch a breather when tired. A player writhes on the ground, seemingly unable to continue, and gets whisked away on a stretcher only to return moments later, healed.

At least that's the routine in the men's game. Viewers of the Women's World Cup semifinals Wednesday might notice that, by comparison, the fake collapses are scarce - a curious distinction between the two games that raises questions: Do female players compete with more integrity? Or has the women's game simply not caught up with the men yet?

"I actually think women don't like that side of the game," said Julie Foudy, a former U.S. national team captain. "But my cynical side tells me that as women get more sophisticated and watch the game more and the stakes get higher, it will become more prevalent."

The act of diving, as the fake falls are called, is artful gamesmanship or outright cheating, depending on one's view. The use of the ruse was evident Sunday during the U.S. women's riveting World Cup quarterfinal victory over Brazil, but the relative lack of this tactic in women's soccer was captured in a study conducted at Wake Forest University. Researchers determined that women are much less likely than men to dive and fake injuries.

Scholarly approach

"We can say that men writhe on the ground looking like they're injured more than women, almost twice as often," said Dr. Daryl Rosenbaum, the lead author of the study, which was published in the July issue of the journal Research in Sports Medicine. "And when players are apparently injured, the percentage when it was authentic by our criteria was twice as high with women. You could trust more that they were injured."

Still, the study did find evidence of diving in women's soccer, and it played a key role in the outcome Sunday.

Late in overtime, the Brazilian defender Erika dropped to the turf in front of her goal with no American player nearby. She was placed on a stretcher, only to climb off and soon return to the field. It was a clear act of feigning injury to kill time, as Brazil was trying to protect its 2-1 lead. Erika was given a yellow card for stalling, which extended the game and allowed the Americans to tie the score. They won 5-3 in a penalty-kick shootout.

"It's frustrating to play against that," said Christie Rampone, captain of the U.S. team, which will face France in the semifinals Wednesday.

At the same time, Rampone said before the match: "When you see the calls being made, you ask, 'Why aren't we doing it?' You start questioning yourself."

The Wake Forest researchers found six apparent injuries per match during the 2007 Women's World Cup; team physicians reported only 2.3 injuries per match. For the 2003 and 2007 World Cups, the rate of "definite" injuries was .78 per match, compared with 4.96 "questionable" injuries per match.

But with the rates so different between men and women, questions arise about whether simulation is due to the nature of soccer or reflects inherent differences among the participants.

Question of motivation

Rosenbaum offers two theories. One is that the greater visibility and higher financial stakes in men's soccer lead to more gamesmanship.

"You could say the pressure and money are more immense, so they'll resort to anything to avoid embarrassment to the country or to the team," Rosenbaum said. "But women will argue that they care as much."

Second, Rosenbaum said, the larger size and greater speed of men might lead to more frequent contact.

Brandi Chastain, who scored the winning penalty kick and famously launched a jersey-waving celebration for the U.S. in the 1999 Women's World Cup, offered a third theory: Women's soccer has more integrity.

She noted men's soccer had a head start, organizing its first World Cup in 1930; women did not hold one until 1991. Leaders of the pioneering U.S. teams of the 1990s steered away from gamesmanship, Chastain said.

Sunday, the Brazilians claimed Abby Wambach, the top U.S. forward, was diving. Candidly, Wambach said beforehand that she has used the tactic but made a distinction between what she considers legitimate simulation and unsporting embellishment.

Wambach rationalizes

"If a player said they never dived, they're lying," Wambach said. "But no one wants to be known for that. If you don't get touched and you go down just to get a penalty, that's cheating. If you get hit not hard enough to be knocked down or knocked off the ball but physical enough that you might lose possession, I understand."